In recent years, Emily Ratajkowski has taken an active role in various causes and a strong commitment to women’s rights. With almost 27 million followers on Instagram, the model knows the reach that each of her posts can have.
At the same time that she announced her pregnancy, she has taken the opportunity to denounce that society is based on stereotypes and different values for men and women. “When my husband and I have friends that I’m pregnant, your first question after the ‘congratulations’ almost always ‘? You know what you want me to be'” He adds that like to answer them that “we do not know the genre until our son is 18 years old and tell us “, although he points out that everyone laughs at his answer.
It is one of the reflections of the model in Vogue magazine, explaining why she is not interested in knowing the sex of her baby.
“The possibilities are much more complex than the genitalia with which our child can be born”
These are the words with which the model and renowned feminist began her deep reflection about her role as a mother, after announcing that she is pregnant.
“We have no idea who is growing inside my womb. Who will this person be? What kind of person will we become as parents? How will our lives change and who we are? This is a wonderful and scary concept, that it leaves us defenseless and humble. “
She assures that she intends to fall into as few gender stereotypes as possible about her child, although she understands those couples who want to know the sex of their baby during pregnancy:
“No matter how progressive I may be, I understand the desire to know the gender of our fetus; it feels like the first real chance to get a glimpse of who it might be. As my body changes in unknown ways, it is comforting to get whatever information I get. your baby feels more real. “
Â
“I’m not sure I want to have a girl.”
Emily continues telling that when she was little she imagined that she would have a girl and that she remembers picking up dolls and imagining that it would be “her future best friend, something like the American Girl doll I had, with brown eyes and brown hair to reflect my own features, a mini version of myself. “
His therapist explained that this is relatively common, and called it ‘Psychology of the day’ :
“It develops the idea that people can have children to ‘remake’ their own childhood. They want to fix themselves and their traumas by trying a new beginning and a mini version of themselves.”
However, she assures that she is no longer so sure of wanting a girl: “I suppose I had never thought about having a boy before.”
She explains that her husband confessed that “I am worried that a girl has a lot to live like your daughter. It is a lot of pressure.”
“I shudder and think of my own mother and her tales of being a prom queen, the way I came to know the word jealous at age three, and my early understanding of how beauty could be equated with power. I prayed for beauty. , pinching my nose on each side before falling asleep, wishing it would stay small. “
And she begins to think like the mother of a girl, in comparison with other mothers she has met who want their daughters to be mini-me, while the girls constantly compare themselves with their parents: “This is how I look like her, this way no, this way I am better, this way I am not. “
She acknowledges that even if she tells her husband that it won’t be like this with her daughter, she can’t help but worry:
“I keep fighting the subconscious and internalized misogyny of measuring the width of my hips against another woman’s. Who assures me that I will be able to protect my daughter from all this?”
“I think my husband wants to have a child”
The model wonders if her husband really longs for a boy, although when he asks, he refuses to give an answer and swears that he has no preference, “one Sunday, while watching football, he made a comment about how fun it would be to have a child to see it with “.
” Girls watch football too!” I reply, shrugging and laughing. Then I look at the TV screen and see a player running as if his life depended on it before he was surrounded and caught. opposing team players “.
“I’m sure I don’t want my son to play soccer. I think about my husband’s mother and how hard it must have been for her to see her son’s body being crushed when she practiced it in high school.”
He acknowledges that it is hard to see how young boys believe they have rights over girls’ bodies and over the world in general: “I am not afraid of raising a ‘bad boy’ , as many of the men I have met who they abuse their power they do so without meaning to. But I am terrified of inadvertently cultivating the lack of awareness of their privileges that are so necessary for men “
“Pregnancy is innately a lonely road”
The model explains that she loves the sweet feeling of her husband when he says “we are pregnant” . But it reminds her that it is not entirely true and they laugh when she points out how unfair it seems to her that “the DNA of all his family is inside me but that my DNA is not inside him.”
Emily admits that it is a kind of joke between them, but that like the comment we make about our son’s gender, there is a truth behind it.
She adds that there is no one who feels with her the sharp muscle aches in her lower abdomen that come out of nowhere while watching a movie or the painful heaviness of her breasts first thing in the morning: “My husband has no physical symptoms. in “our” pregnancy, another reminder of how different the life experience of a woman and a man can be. “
In addition, like all mothers, she confesses that she is learning from the significant changes she is feeling during her pregnancy. Just two days ago he published on his Instagram account:
“I am completely and undeniably helpless when it comes to almost everything that surrounds my pregnancy: how my body will change, who my child will be. But surprisingly I am not in discomfort. Instead of being afraid, I feel a new sense of peace. learning from this person inside my body. I’m in awe. “
Via | Vogue
Photos | Instagram Emily Ratajkowski
In Babies and More | What does the acronym NNA stand for? The new inclusive term that replaces the generic “children”, Fighting stereotypes: how to talk to your children
